By Aimee Chanthadavong
Wesfarmer-owned Target has launched its new retail website to expand its multichannel sales in Australia.
Target chief financial officer John Box told RetailBiz the online store will complement its existing bricks and mortar operations.
“ We took our time further entering the online selling arena to ensure we get it right and make it the experience our customers would expect from Target, including seamless policies like refunds and the same central Customer Relations team for queries,” he said.
“ We have worked hard to ensure that the online experience for our customers is in line with their expectations of our Target brand including the simplicity of use and the friendly approachable style to ensure our customers are ‘100% happy’. In addition to having a product pricing structure that mirrors our in-store and catalogue offers.
“Initially we are launching the online retail store with a small selling presence starting with our baby, nursery and schoolwear ranges, which we will subsequently build on over a period of months. Already we have built on this adding a range of Boys and Girls 1-6 and 7-16 last month.”
The new site is leveraged by multi-channel commerce software vendor Hybris’ B2C commerce platform solution, which allows Target to customise and update the site based on new product developments.
Hybris worked with partner LoyaltyTech, and systems integrator Sapient Nitro, to build the online store.
LoyaltyTech managing director Matt Hampshire said in a statement that Target needed to integrate their systems and processes across different channels, including updating large amounts of information to their websites from back-end systems.
"Cross-channel retailing not only means engaging with customers across channels like Web, social media, mobile, catalogues and stores," he said.
"It also means maintaining a consistent dialogue with the customer across these channels. If I am on Facebook and I can buy there, that's great, because you are minimising the clicks for the customer. However, if this transaction happens in isolation, and the message the customer receives is not consistent with what they are receiving in other channels, then they can easily get confused."
According to Box, following this launch, Target will be redeveloping its corporate website.
“We are continuously reviewing and updating our online presence in line with customer’s expectations” he said.